I am hoping I can get some competent players with personal experience to chime in here, and not opinions from people who have no experience with these models of flutes. So I play a Pratten copy by John Gallagher, and was in his shop recently and played an old Rudall & Carte with really large holes. Even though the flute was not restored, it played quite well, and had a decent amount of volume. I am curious volume wise if a large hole Rudall can stack up to a Pratten. A lot of sessions I play in are particularaly loud, and Pratten and Hawkes models have been the ultimate tool for me to honk and be heard across the room. I really liked the tone of the Rudall & Carte and am hoping the volume of it(and projection) could stack up. Unfortunately I don’t have the restored Rudall next to me to compare with my Pratten copy. John told me that a friend of his checked both a Rudall(not sure what model) and Pratten with a decibel meter and they turned out to be almost the same. My feeling though is that perhaps the Pratten has better projection? He still has the flute in the shop and I’ve been seriously thinking of getting a copy of it, or finding a similar Rudall & Carte for sale.
I play a keyed Pratten and a keyless large hole Ruddall, both by Terry McGee, the Ruddall may actually be the louder of the two, no scientific instruments involved, just my ears in various playing situations and the comments of other players.
Depends in large part on how the flutes are played and who’s playing. I’ve played a Rudall style flute that, if locked in, was the loudest flute I’ve ever played.
a Rudall & Carte like that is about 4’000 gbp…
It isn’t about THE large-holed Rudall compared to THE Pratten. Which particular large-holed Rudall? And which particular Pratten? Flutes by the same maker – even the same model – vary a great deal. Plenty of mighty players are using Rudalls very effectively.
As far as volume goes, it isn’t nearly as important to be heard across the room as it is to hear yourself. Concertinas, generally louder than flutes in sessions, aren’t easily heard by the concertina player. The concertina is about two feet away from the player and the sound points away from the player. In a noisy session it’s much easier for me to hear my flute than for me to hear my own concertina - though I can always hear the concertina being played by the person next to me.
I don’t care if I’m “heard across the room,” though I do want to be heard by other players, so that they know what I’m playing. Sometimes I like to show off with my loud flute, though I’m not always happy with that particular part of me.
Yep.
I’m louder on my medium bore, large hole Rudall than I ever was on my giant bore, giant hole Pratten. It’s not like Rudall = quiet and Pratten = brutally loud. It depends on who plays which flute with which technique in which context/session size at which level of blood alcohol (ehem). 
Unqualified but…
One day I decided to push my flute. Normally I try to hold back on my fife and piccolo and so I play the flute that way. My other half noticed I was playing loud. Her quote was “What happened, you were playing so nicely”.
This might be an interesting read.
http://www.mcgee-flutes.com/Grey.htm
It’s important to distinguish between volume and projection. Volume tends to be more apparent to the player, projection to listeners. In my experience, some flutes that sound the loudest to me playing aren’t the ones that can be heard best across the room.
I spoke with John Gallagher a few years ago; if memory serves, the decibel meter comparison was between his Pratten and small-holed Rudall models.
I don’t have massive amounts of experience (just a intermediate player as a hobby) but I have played and heard few versions of these over the years and the problem with making any sort of blanket statement about them is that even the originals were pretty inconsistent. What I mean is that two of the same flute made by Rudall & Carte or Pratten models by Boosey and Son may sound totally different from each other. Later Rudall & Carte models in particular seem to have evolved towards greater volume.
Add into that the modern takes on those by current makers based on the specific flute that is in their hands at the time plus innovations of their own, and various wood types means it’s like comparing oranges and orangutans.
In general, if you are looking for power in a flute, my thought is that you should stick with the Pratten styles. It’s not that you can’t get good volume with the Rudalls, it’s just that I think you are going to find that most makers equate Pratten style flutes with volume and punch and Rudall style flutes with complexity and sweetness of tone and they tend to build those qualities into the models by those names.
JMHO
most makers equate Pratten style flutes with volume and punch and Rudall style flutes with complexity and sweetness of tone and they tend to build those qualities into the models by those names.
This may be the crucial part. And one of the reasons why Murray flutes are so well respected: Rudall, but with punch.
I don’t think those are scientific terms you’re using there. I would still think of volume as some sort of independent measure of amplitude; you’re talking about perception.
I do think your second point is spot on. I’m going to go speculative myself and say that a flute’s EQ profile (and by flute I mean a flute/player binary system) may be the deciding factor in what you hear from across the room. An example from the guitar world:
Some amplifiers sound extremely bright by themselves, not necessarily pleasing to the ear. However, with the rest of the band that sound sits perfectly in the mix. Other amps are made to sound like your favorite album, at living room volume levels. When the drummer cranks up, these amps can sound muddy and indistinct.
Guess which kind the pros choose?
Rob
I think I’ve noticed something akin to this. John Wynne, who plays I believe an older Murray, starts a reel on his own, solo, when he was playing with the band Providence on the first track of the album “Fig for a Kiss”. His sound solo is full of hiss and “chiff” (something I have difficulty dealing with about Rudall flutes in general when playing on my own), but once the band comes in, the flute sounds great and perfectly balanced, the hiss no longer noticeable.
Jason
John used to play a Murray; now he plays a Grinter.
I sat in on a master class with the fiddler Mark O’Connor once (as a spectator), and he commented that he’d rather play a fiddle that has a bright sound, because he get a bright or dark sound from it (which he demonstrated to dramatic effect), but he said it’s much harder to make a dark fiddle sound bright.
P.S. Rob–right, not using volume and projection scientifically; rather in the way I’ve come across them used in flute parlance, where volume equals loudness, but projection is how well the sound travels, regardless of loudness.
not using volume and projection scientifically; rather in the way I’ve come across them used in flute parlance, where volume equals loudness, but projection is how well the sound travels, regardless of loudness
Now how will I ever know what you or any flute testimonial means? I don’t see how something could have any “loudness” if sound didn’t “travel”. AFAIK, there is no definition for projection, layman or scientific.
Rent a car. Turn on the radio and check the treble (and bass) setting. Almost always jacked up. Guess why.
I just scanned a bunch of reviews on TripAdvisor for a 4-star hotel near Heathrow. One says, conveniently close to Heathrow (high user rating). Another says, too far (low user rating). Why doesn’t anybody write, 4 miles or 20 minutes by bus? Thank goodness for Google maps.
On another matter, unless we have accurate background information about a flute’s design, to the average end user the flute can never be more than a mysterious black box – i.e., unless he gets out digital calipers and compares its dimensions to a known standard. Black-box testing rules apply. “Rudall-esque” and “Pratten-inspired” are speculative characterizations.
I guess this is where I chime in and say I just bit the bullet and ordered the Rudall copy. The bottom line is that the particular antique Rudall & Rose(not a R&C as I had thought) I played was stellar, and had a great tone, and on second thought that’s worth more than than volume in the long run. I have a hunch it will be quite a honker, as even the antique flute with all it’s cracks and leaky pads had a good amount of kick to it. I regretfully will have to sell my 8 key dogwood Pratten to fund this, but I’m really liking the sound of Rudall flutes. It seems a lot of my favorite flute players use R&R originals or copies. I had a boxwood Rudall #1040 with small holes, but that thing did possess a decent amount of volume. I sold it mainly because it had no long F or C, but did have foot keys. So i’ve turned back over to the dark side again it seems.
Touché, m31. So obviously my definition has its flaws! Basically, projection describes how well the sound can be thrown–how well it travels. A good example of projection is when listening to an orchestra, hearing a flute passage played piano perfectly clearly above/through the orchestra.
It all comes down to the idea that what the player hears often has little relation to what a listener hears some distance away. When I was shopping for a new flute at one point, I tried one that I felt gave me a big, fat sound. But my teacher pointed out that those characteristics weren’t present on the other side of the room. (In effect, the flute gave me the illusion of being loud.) Instead, a less loud (to me) flute, allowed for better projection–the sound carried better.
Projection has something to do with a flute’s design, but it’s also a technique that can be developed. Like in the orchestra example, one can learn to make the flute’s sound carry at various volume levels. One way to learn in real time is to use a stereo or recorder with a mic input; get a really long mic cord, and put the mic as far away as possible. Then pop on some headphones, and turn up so you only hear yourself through the mic. Almost like being in two places at once!
All the same, projection is a fuzzy term at best. It gets bandied about a great deal in instrument circles, but it still doesn’t qualify as an objective measure of anything. Not only is it subjective, it’s also completely circumstantial. And, as has been said, it can have more to do with what the player is doing than the flute he’s doing it on.
All in all, I can’t see where projection is a quality a flute can be said to have.
Rob
oh boy!!! projection one of me favorite dead horses
I must’ve missed it the first thousand times around.
Rob
I could trot out me Mum/warehouse story again!!